Issue Position: Environment

Issue Position

The Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries make up the largest estuary in the world, and for this reason it has tremendous economic potential that we cannot afford to ignore. It is critical that as we look at the Bay economically, that we continue to develop and understand our role both as manipulators and keepers of our environment. Our quality of life and health are dependent upon this and the wide range of other environmental resources Maryland has to offer. A storm water runoff fee is designed to ameliorate the documented effects of polluted runoff, and uses of money collected by it should be utilized beyond the scope of educational programs and publicity campaigns. The funds collected should to be used to literally clean up trouble spots in our environment, as well as come with reduction incentives for those that introduce eco-friendly initiatives, like permeable parking lots and green roofs, placing a proactive, positive focus on the problem. The fee should also be equitably collected by the state, without grandstanding and posturing by individual counties, and should be progressively structured to reduce the burden of lesser economic resources.

We also need to look to the future concerning our energy needs--we are a society that is addicted to fossil fuels, and we need to take steps to recover from that addiction. Renewable energy programs utilizing wind and solar power need to be jump-started so they can become ultimately become popular, viable and inexpensive. Exploitation of our current supply of fossil fuels is only acceptable if the means of attaining it is safe for our environment; and by extension safe and healthy for us, our children, and their children. Short term solutions cannot be short sighted: horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing may be a short term solution, but we must be absolutely sure that it will not destroy quality of life, now or in the future. Currently we do not have that assurance, and for that reason I support a moratorium on this type of extraction unless the bipartisan commission can convince me that it is a fully safe prospect.

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